'I think they are in big trouble' - Scott Styris expresses concerns over CSK's retention policy

Former New Zealand player Scott Styris has expressed his concerns over the Chennai Super Kings’ strategy to not release many of their older players. The list of the players released by CSK on Wednesday included not a lot of names. Notably, it had players like Harbhajan Singh, Kedar Jadhav. Piyush Chawla and Murali Vijay, but there were many players way past 30 who were retained in the squad for the IPL 2021. 

According to the cricketer turned commentator felt that the CSK team still lacks that ‘spine’ to support the ‘backbones’ of the side. The team had retained Skipper MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Faf du Plessis, Dwayne Bravo, Ambati Rayudu, and Imran Tahir. Many of these players are well above 30 and are not getting younger. 

“Where is that spine coming from for CSK?”: Styris

“I think they are in big trouble. The players they released were expected to be the older players in the squad. I think a couple are there but who are the backbones? Where is that spine coming from for CSK?” Styris said during a show on Star Sports which was meant to be for revealing all the names of the players who were retained and released. 

The former batsman rightly pointed out that the top order of the Chennai franchise has not played a lot of cricket, which could just work against them. He also said that CSK’s strategy of sticking to experienced players was going to fall against them at some point and it happened in the previous IPL. 

You still need the younger generation coming through. MS Dhoni mentioned that, says Scott Styris

“When you look at that top order, they’re not playing a lot of cricket, so I think CSK have a lot of work ahead of them. The auction is a big part of that, not only for this year but next too,” added Styris. “I think their hands are tied a little bit. In reality, the storyline for the last three years has been about old is gold and the ageing side that CSK has. But that was always going to come back and bite them,” said Styris.

Styris further took on something which MS Dhoni had talked about during the last season of IPL. The skipper had talked about the younger generation stepping up and doing well, which is contrary to what they have done ahead of the auctions. “You still need the younger generation coming through. MS Dhoni mentioned that. He spoke about handing it over to the next generation. Where that comes from, I don’t know,” Styris added.

CSK still have seven slots available in the squad to fill with new and young players from the auctions. But, after the horrid season which they had last time around, it seems odd that they have stuck and backed the same side.